


Same Stars

by Inky_Pens



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Living in a lonely world, generous fluff with a sprinkle of angst, rey is just a small town girl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:47:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24148426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inky_Pens/pseuds/Inky_Pens
Summary: A mini-shot of New Yorker Ben visiting Small Town Rey. Come in for the fluff, stay for the sprinkle of angst and feelings.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31





	Same Stars

“We could go anywhere, you know.” She said it softly, looking ahead at nothing in particular on the field that lay before them. He looked out of place here, in her small-town suburb of a small-town city. Everything was smaller in Louisiana, especially in the relentless humidity of the summer afternoons. Nothing like the New York he grew up in, but just as draining. She’d spent the last two years of their online friendship joking with him about being the only lonely man in one of the biggest metropolitans in the world. He used to chuckle at her indulgently, revering the way she saw the world as a kaleidoscope through binoculars. To someone like Rey, anywhere seemed bigger and brighter beyond the muddy browns and greens of her home state.

He hesitated as he always did when he was about to hurt her feelings.

“It wouldn’t suit you.” And he knew, the moment his mouth closed around the last word, that it was the wrong thing to say.

She threw the car into gear and pulled out of the parking lot of her old high school, back onto the country roads that would lead them to her home. He jostled in the passenger seat, and Rey couldn’t help the unkind thought that she hoped he spilled the Chunky Monkey daiquiri all over his crisp white linen Oxford. On better days, she found it unsettlingly attractive that he managed to look his best, dressing to impress no matter the circumstance. But today, despite two years of friendship and knowing better, she couldn’t help but think it pretentious. She sweat like a pig wearing her usual Southern uniform white tee and jean shorts, but he looked immaculate. Her hair piled into three descending buns, each one a progressive gathering of wisps that came loose from the bun above it. He was clean shaven and hair combed into a $300 coif. (When she balked at the price, he decided not to tell her of his typical spa day expense. Especially not after she accused him of only going to the spa to pick up “hoity-toity” women.)

“Rey…” he hedged. Her mood swung faster than her Mercury Cougar around the 90-degree turn-off into her driveway.

“If you don’t want me around, just say it, Ben. You like having your scheduled visits with your Louisiana internet pal but I wouldn’t fit into _your_ world. Well, guess what, Solo? You fit in like a vegan at a crawfish boil in mine, but you don’t see me rubbing it in.”

Ben knew better than to interrupt her emotional spinning out. He watched her cheeks grow red with either anger or embarrassment, saw her nostrils flare as her breathing accelerated, and, though he tried not to, zeroed in on her mouth, where she was worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. His own cheeks flushed, but she wouldn’t have noticed it.

“Maybe I’m just like penguin exhibit at the zoo, huh? Not particularly fascinating for the likes of you, the prodigal son from an impressive family of Very Important People, but still. Just good ol’ reliable Rey, waddling around waiting for Ben Solo to come say hi and give her a moment of your attention before you move along to the more fun stuff. Which for you is probably like the bats or something.”

“I like the penguins,” he murmured softly.

“It’s just…” she trailed off, leaving the sentence open as she worked to pry off the pieces of insecurity that shielded her vulnerability. “What if there’s more? I have Finn and Poe, and Rose here. And I would miss them something fierce, but what if I need more? There’s this whole big world out there that you get to live in, and I want to experience it—with or without you, Ben.”

He watched her a few moments more, gathering the wits to say what he wanted to say and allowing her the time to settle into her silence, which was always unpredictable. In fact, he’d long since resigned to starting his sentences and pausing, waiting for her inevitable interruptions as she fought to get out the last of the thoughts swimming in her head.

But when she didn’t have anything more to say, when he watched her head tilt back to the headrest and her fingers slackened from their angry grip on the steering wheel, when he saw the tear escape the corner of her eye, eyes she fluttered to keep the rest at bay, he still stammered for the right words.

“Rey I—look, it’s not that—I understand that you--.” He took a deep breath they way he would before a board meeting, but unlike the Ben Solo of the corporate world, he softened his features and turned in the too-small seat of her too-small car to give his full attention to the woman who first caught his attention when her tweet went viral when she demonstrated the difference between yelling and ‘yelling in Southern’.

“Rey, they don’t hug each other for hello in New York. You’d be hard-pressed to find that in most parts of the U.S. You can’t just leave your purse open on the passenger seat in plain view while you run in ‘real quick like’ at the gas station. Out there they don’t call each other ‘ma’am’ or ‘baby’. It’s colder, and you’re… you aren’t cold. You’re warmth and light, and when I said you wouldn’t like it, what I meant is that I don’t want to see the world take that goodness from you. You’ll go back into the kitchen at a restaurant if you’ve been waiting on ranch too long. You don’t think anything of it and neither do they. You treat everyone as thought you’ve known them your whole life, and maybe it’s because out here you have, but the world outside of this is not like that, Rey. They will eat you alive.”

She pressed her lips together to keep herself from arguing back his valid concern. Later, she would wrestle the thoughts of Ben caring about her in a way that felt like more than friendship, but for now, she soaked in what he said and tried to get him to understand.

“I don’t want to be the girl from nowhere, Ben. I’m not so naive to think the constellations are bigger and brighter somewhere else. They’re still the same stars. _I_ can be brighter, though. I can have more than what this place will ever offer me. And maybe I’ll stop hugging strangers and be more responsible with personal belongings, but I’ll still be Rey. I’ll still be the same charm and sass that endeared you to me during a Twitter fight two years ago. A fight that _I_ won, by the way.”

“You didn’t win. I conceded.”

For the first time in the afternoon, her smile was unrestrained. It lit up his world the way only she could. “Tomato, tomato.”

“That’s not how you say it, you know.” Ben wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his side, but it wasn’t close enough. He unbuckled her seatbelt and helped pull her over the center console until she sat astride in his lap. It’s new, this physicality they’re exploring in a friendship that was slow-burning into something… _more_ , but neither had put it into words yet.

“You should feel what snow feels like in your hair and eat tacos that aren’t from Taco Bell. I know that I’m a sullen bastard most of the time, and I don’t know why you put up with me, but I’ll go wherever you’ll have me, Rey. New constellations and all.”


End file.
